... First I have a few small jobs that will keep me busy:
* clean engine and gearbox
* get the crank pulley off
* remove cam chain housing
* fit a blanked off water pump housing (Jesper is helping having one made)
* get it all screwed together
* renew valve seals
And then the engine room needs cleaning, etc, etc
Best
Anders
There are a couple of things I should point out here Anders, and to anyone else in this situation.
Getting the crank nut off now the engine is out is quite easy, as long as you have access to an impact wrench (air or electric). Remember first to unlock the lock-tab washer. The impact wrench and the rapid rotational hammer effect it has will undo the nut without having to worry about locking the crankshaft, as the whole thing - crank, rods, pistons etc. is too heavy and has too much friction to move and the nut simply spins off.
As for the reasons to remove the nut and the crank pulley, for anyone else reading this, if it was just to replace the timing case seal, you should do that with the timing case still bolted on! However if like Anders you wish to remove the timing case too, there are points you should note. First the timing case is in two parts, upper and lower, and these are not only bolted to the block but there are two bolts bolting them together at the cylinder head face joint. They are also fitted onto small dowel sleeves, which some of the bolts pass through, that lock them exactly in place so they cannot move up, down or side ways and have to come off directly away from the block.
Now this next item is
important. These timing cases were not designed to be taken off or refitted with the cylinder head or sump still fitted.
(22nd May
update on next paragraph as I forgot to include the sump gasket)
The cylinder head gasket is between the upper and lower timing case, so if the head is still bolted securely on, then the clamping force on that gasket is the same as that on the head to cylinder block! And at the bottom if the sump is still fitted you have the problem of that gasket which is much more delicate. So these are the problems. If you undo all the timing case bolts and try to pull either the upper or lower timing case away from the head or block, they are both stuck securely to that bit of the head gasket and have a high force against each side of it. And that force on the lower timing case is transmitted to the lower face where it will be very tight against the sump gasket, which being cork, is a lot more delicate than the head gasket. Whilst it is fitted and bolted, the dowel sleeves will hold the timing case in place, but as soon as you try to remove that timing case, and if you managed to get it away from the block to come off the dowel sleeves, it will tear the sump gasket owing to the force downwards from the upper timing case and head gasket. If you managed to get one of the covers off without damaging that bit of the head gasket that will quite a feat in itself, but there is no way you will not break the sump gasket, unless the sump is off and you have already separated it from the lower timing case. When you then try to refit that cover (let's say it is the bottom one) you would have to push it hard up against that head gasket before the dowel sleeve holes would align with the dowel sleeves to allow you to tap the cover into place, and it would not only have to try to compress that bit of the head gasket but also slide against both that and the sump gasket to go back into place against the block! Even getting enough pressure against the gasket to align the holes and dowel sleeves will be extremely difficult, and you may find impossible. So think about this carefully before deciding what you do next.
Finally, if you do leave the head on and therefore need to replace the valve seals with the top still bolted in place, all the different types of tools for replacing the valve seals have one fundamental problem. They rely on compressing the valve spring,
without the valve moving down. This is so the top retainer can free the locking collets which you can then remove to take the spring off and replace the seal. But you will find, as I have and I have done quite a number of these engines now so have some experience of this, that the collets and top retainer will be locked by the taper and pressure over time and they will be very difficult to separate, so every time you try to compress the spring, the valve will move down too. You have to stop it moving to break the seal between the retainer and collets.
I have found that even with the head on a bench and something solid under the valve head to stop it moving, it can take quite some sharp force to 'unlock' them. When the head is in place, getting something solid under a valve head through the plug hole is very difficult at the least! Also it has to have the piston at top dead centre to give it something solid to react against. So whatever you use has to be such that it is not going to damage the top of the pistons which are only alloy. Some of these tools are designed to use the spark plug hole and air pressure blown into the cylinder to hold the valve in place. This is laughable and I can tell you now that simply will not work with these! The air even under pressure is weaker and will simply compress and the valve will move down, and the instant the valve lifts off its seat the air pressure drops away.
On Colin's engine we could only get some support under the inlet valve heads which are directly across from the plug holes, and managed to change all the inlet valve seals (which are the ones most likely to cause problems as it happens) but there was simply no way we could get under the exhaust valve heads as they are alongside the plug hole and you need to get something through the plug holes but then at about 90 degrees to them.
So as you have the engine out now, and all the work that this involves, it really makes much more sense to remove the cylinder head as well and do all the necessary jobs properly. All the jobs are much easier with the engine out, and they will be completed with much less hassle, and without having to try to make things to do some of these jobs simply because you didn't want to take those extra few things apart. You will spend more time trying to do the jobs than if you did take it apart. So think about it carefully now before you start.
Roy
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